This is Zephyr.....................................click
here SUADE to see suades amazing colour changes

This
is Shadow, she now has cancer

Although I have an allergy to these animals
I decided that there was no way that I was going to live without them! I got
a new rat on december the 27th out of a feeder bin at a pet store. Shadow however
is not impressed with this extremely moody new rat and so I got a new friend
for Suade a young blue male named Zephyr. Unfortunately there has been a new
turn of events, it now apppears that Suade the hermaphrodite rat is in fact
pregnant..how much more confusing could it get??

Why to get a rat

For anyone who is looking for a pet I have
to say that rats are one of the best small animals that you can get, they are
so full of personality it is amazing. They are easy to care for as they don't
need a lot of room and they are easy to clean. They are really inexpensive and
they are very loving creatures. My favorite rat was a rat named wisdom who I
had from birth and when he was out he would come up to my neck to get cuddles,
he was the most amazing pet I have ever had and WAY more loving than even the
dogs that I have.

What do I need for a rat?

You need a few things. First I would sugest
that you make sure that you have enough time. Rats need a lot of interaction
and are not like fish that can just be left in their bowl. They need to come
out and play, get excercise and have lots of different things to do. They need
a cage. I used to use guinea pig cages but I have found that they need a little
more room than that so that they can run around. They like to climb and jump
and have levels in their cage, they also enjoy little houses made of whatever
you would like to create them out of. The more creative you get the happier
they will be!Rats like to do things. My rat has a very large cage and she is
taken out every day to hang out and run around

What are the negative aspects
of having a rat?

The thing that I found to be the most negative
aspect of having a rat is that they have a very short lifespan. In the 10years
that I have had rats the longest I have had one live to has been almost four
years and that was Seti. Of the twelve rats that were really mine only three
of them did not die of cancer. Those are pretty slim odds. They CHEW, you cannot
leave them unattended without finding things that are chewed to smitherines.
They are very destructive if left to their own devices

Rats together

Putting rats together can be a touchy subject!
Rats are great little pets and love company but you have to know rat language
and understand what is a rat fight and what is a play for dominence. Putting
two females together in my experience is not a problem. I have only had one
problem and that was with a year old dominent rat that was not interested in
having a friend with her at all , so she lived happily alone all her life. I
would recomend introducing two rats together on neutral ground, say the bathroom
floor where they can meet eachother without feeling threatened. After doing
this a few times clean out the cage they are going to share, make sure everything
is cleaned and then place them in together. Make sure you are close and able
to supervise. Sometimes you will be surprised and they will hit it off and that
will be that, but other times they may not and it may take a while untill they
get to know one another. I introduced a pair of rats to another pair and they
all lived together(all females) and they were all of different ages. When it
comes to two males it is a little more tricky. I have never introduced two adult
males as I think this would be risky but I have introduced two males from separate
litters and they got on very well, in fact they were inseperable throughout
their lives.